Thence, passing through Flanders, she reached the
stronghold of Stenay,[1] where the Viscomte de Turenne, already
compromised with the Court for having openly espoused the Conde party,
had shortly before the Duchess's arrival also taken refuge.

[1] Stenay, taken from the Spaniards in 1641, had been given to the
Prince de Conde in 1646.

It was then that the Duchess, who, under the sway of La Rochefoucauld,
had been one of the instruments of the first Fronde war, became the
motive power of the second and far more serious one--well named by the
witty Parisians "the women's war." From the citadel of Stenay, of which
she took the command, she directed the wills and actions of the men of
her party, into which she thoroughly won over Turenne. Her
importunities, aided by her charms, prevailed so powerfully over his
valiant though fallible heart, that the illustrious captain, after
having struggled painfully for some time with his conscience, allied
himself with the Spaniards by a treaty which placed him, as well as the
sister of the great Conde, in the pay of the enemies of his king and
country. The treaty effectively stipulated "that there should be a
junction of the two armies, and that the war should be carried on by the
assistance of the King of Spain until a peace should be concluded
between the two kings and the princes liberated. That the King of Spain
should engage to pay over to Madame de Longueville and to Monsieur de
Turenne two hundred thousand crowns wherewith to raise and equip troops;
that he should furnish them with forty thousand crowns per month for the
payment of such troops, and sixty thousand crowns per annum in three
payments for _the table and equipages_ of Madame de Longueville and
Monsieur de Turenne." This treaty duly signed, Madame de Longueville
issued, in the form of a letter to his Majesty the King of France, a
manifesto very skilfully drawn up and filled with artful complaints and
accusations against Mazarin, with the design of soliciting through the
one and the other an apology for her own conduct, as though it were
possible to justify herself for having entered into a compact with the
enemies of her country.

It was during her sojourn at Stenay that she lost her mother (2nd
December, 1650). "My dear friend," said the Princess de Conde to Madame
de Brienne, who was with her during her last moments, "tell that 'pauvre
miserable' who is now at Stenay the condition in which you have see